Blake Gillespie at Impose Magazine talked with Krondon and Phil from Strong Arm Steady about the new album, Stereotype.

Impose: So what happened to your voice the first time we talked?

I was coming down under the weather a little bit. I was pushing myself a little harder than I should have been, honestly bro.

I’m a one man band in a lot of ways, bro. Don’t get me wrong, my guys do rap in the  group, but that’s what they do. They rap. There’s much more to this than just rapping. I get thrown to do a lot of shit.

Are there tricks you’ve picked up to keep your voice strong?

What I didn’t do before doing our interview, is I definitely drink a lot of tea and honey. I try not to yell at people, if the lord allows me. I smoke a lot of marijuana. I don’t know if that helps or hurts. Keeping that undecided right now.

Mixing in a vaporizer here and there might be beneficial, i hear.

I do. I have a trippy stick that I keep in my pocket and I smoke blunts.

Are you still doing a lot of writing for people?

Yeah, doing a lot of ghost writing. I’m in the midst of doing a bunch of ghost writing.

How do you get in the mindset to write for others?

I think you have to be an open person. You have to be humble. You gotta at some point be confident in not only who you are but what you are in your field. I think that I feel privileged to be a ghost writer in this industry, to be respected as one, and known as one. It’s humbling to know that great artists trust you in your craft. Don’t let nobody fucking lie to you, Blake. Anybody that’s a ghost writer aspires to be an artist themselves.

[We took a break once again to add Phil Da Agony on the line]

Phil, would you like to start your contribution by explain why eating dark meat is a way to diss people.

Phil: Well, there’s nothing shaming about it. Initially, I rewrote that verse because that was one of the songs we started on when we first started working with Statik Selectah. With that being said, I wanted to rewrite that verse.

Light and dark meat, in a sense of eating… people usually go for the light meat and dark meat is the cheaper version and shit. I actually like dark meat though. I’ll go for the legs sometimes or the breast. In the rhyme’s sake though, I was just differentiating between this and that. It was hilarious though.

You guys appeared on Snoop Dogg’s internet show recently. how do you feel about his alias change to Snoop Lion?

Phil and Krondon: I love it.

K: I think it’s progressive. I know he’s catching a lot of flack about it. I myself, as an artist… the Krondon you see today is not the Krondon that started in 99-00. It’s not the same guy. When I was independent, putting vinyl out at Fat Beats, I’m a completely different person now. I’m glad to see this Snoop Dogg because I know the Snoop Dogg I grew up on in ’91. To see him now, be who he is is wonderful. Much like you saw Andre[3000} during Southernplayalistic wearing ADIDAS jackets and house shoes, and you never saw him wearing feathers and all the crazy shit he wears. It took years, writing and playing guitar to get to that. As artists we can’t stereotype ourselves and obviously Snoop Dogg does not stereotype himself.

P: We love it. He’s been #1 on the Rap and R&B charts, but now he’s on the reggae charts. He was #1 on those charts. It’s a step for him in reinventing himself. I was watching TV this morning and Arsenio Hall is coming back out with a TV Show. He was even saying, you’ve seen the Arsenio Hall Show, but you haven’t seen what I’m doing now. We’ve changed over the years and grow and get better in a sense. I’m looking forward to Snoop someday saying ‘Call me Calvin’ in the next decade, you know.

READ THE FULL PIECE AT IMPOSE:
Strong Arm Steady – Breaking down stereotypes from LA cops to third record expectations.